Teeth in bacon?

[MissVantaBlack]

As a child in the 1980s, I distinctly remember that rashers of bacon often had small pieces of a hard, white substance embedded within them, about the size of a child's tooth.

DH was grilling bacon last night and when I reminisced about the "teeth" to him, he looked at me as if I had two heads. He thinks I'm imagining it.

Does anybody else remember finding "teeth" in bacon?

I know what you mean but I think they were bits of bone!

No, can’t say I remember teeth or bone.

I definitely remember there being hard bits of gristle in bacon and that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. I’ve never found a tooth though 😱

Yes I remember that. Only just when you mentioned it though. It was bone I think.

Yes, bacon definitely had bits of bone that looked like teeth - I once cut my mouth eating a bacon sandwich because of one!

Yes, they were round bits of bone/gristle. Mainly in cheap bacon (I remember them in Uni Hall of Residence bacon). You used to just cut around them!

Yes I remember, but never thought of them as "teeth" - just bits of bone or cartilage! I'd have turned vegetarian if anyone had told me they were teeth.

Oh good, glad I wasn't imagining it! And I realised (once I got past the fevered childish imagination stage) that they couldn't really be teeth. But why doesn't bacon contain these bits of gristle or bone any more? Has pig physiology changed so much?

I think maybe they just cut bacon from a slightly different area now? And use the gristly bits for something else?

Bacon used to have the r I nd on too

I assume bacon doesn't now because of aesthetics and improved techniques. I don't think it's anything to do with pig evolution. We were low income, out bacon def had it

I remember this too !

I was vegetarian from a very early age !

Douglas Adams’ fabulous Meaning of Liff called them Beccles and pinned the blame on guerilla dentists tmoliff.blogspot.com/2012/09/beccles-n.html?m=1

Yes I remember. It's more likely cartilage than bone . More common with rind on bacon.

Yes, it was bone. Shards of bone get into meat when the butchery is poor. Bits of bone splinter, and get embedded in the flesh like shrapnel.

Butchery tools and standards have improved.

And in sausages!!! That rock hard bone bit 🤮I would stop eating sausages for a year or so, instantly… then get lured back again… then hit that bit of bone and feel repelled all over again!

Oh my God, I'd forgotten The Meaning of Liff till you mentioned it. I loved that wee book. Think all my friends got a copy from me at one point or another 😃